Racing Post is one of the lucky publications that has its niche cornered. Similar to publications with a strong hold on their audience, it has successfully put online subscriptions to good use since the early 2000s. But not all paywalls are created equal, and Racing Post was working with a homemade solution that was no longer cutting the mustard. It decided to revamp its paid content strategy to better serve its consumers, grow subscriber numbers, and collect greater insight into its audience.

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Thomson Gale, part of The Thomson Corporation, has announced enhancements and additional entries to several of the company's online databases. Primary Source Microfilm, a Thomson Gale imprint, has also announced the release of a new microfilm collection, Holodomor: Famine in Ukraine, 1932-1933. And the Thomson Corporation has announced that an additional 45 years of backfiles will soon be available to Web of Science customers.

Ten additional practice tests have been added to the Testing & Education Reference Center, bringing the total number of practice tests included in the product to 41. The new practice tests are the SAT II subject-specific tests in: Biology/Ecological/Molecular, Chemistry, French, Literature, Math IC, Math IIC, Physics, Spanish, US History, and World History. In addition to these tests, Testing & Education Reference Center includes the SAT II Peterson/ARCO eBook study guides, offering test taking tips, preparation plans, and content study guides covering the test material with study plans.

New and updated entries from the Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia have been added to some of Thomson Gale's online databases. New or revised content about the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, West Nile Virus, and more than 230 other topics can be found in these InfoTrac Web databases: General Reference Center Gold, General Reference Center, InfoTrac Student Edition,InfoTrac Junior Edition, InfoTrac Kid's Edition, and Kid's InfoBits.

Contemporary Authors in online format contains biographies on the novelists, poets, playwrights, nonfiction writers, journalists, and scriptwriters who have entries in the print volumes, including the volumes published most recently in 2004: Contemporary Authors, Volumes 1-225, 1963-2004 and Contemporary Authors New RevisionSeries 1-131, 1981-2004. In addition, Contemporary Authors online offers updated information on the most active authors in this database. Contemporary Authors content is available electronically as a standalone database on both the GaleNet and InfoTrac platforms, and as a Thomson Gale digital archive. All of the same Contemporary Authors content is also fully integrated within two of Gale's resource centers--the Biography ResourceCenter and the Literature Resource Center.

The World Biographical Index Internet edition recently received an overhaul and a new user interface. It is now available on an annual subscription basis and is free of charge for subscribers to the World Biographical Information System Online, an electronic collection of the Biographical Archives.

Holodomor: Famine in Ukraine, 1932 - 1933 documents the famine that devastated Ukraine shortly after Stalin came to power in the former Soviet Union. In 2003, Ukraine marked the anniversary of the famine that swept the Ukrainian countryside in 1932 and 1933. Known by its Ukrainian name Holodomor, this event claimed the lives of three- to seven-million men, women, and children. The Holodomor collection gives researchers access to correspondence from local Communist Party committees and executive committees of local Soviets, as well as official and private appeals of the regional committees on the confiscations, the effects of the famine, and the internal party politics. Also included are memoranda and reports from the state security and judicial divisions, as well as letters from citizens testifying to the enforcement of the Soviet policy and the pleas for assistance that were ignored.

The Thomson Corporation has also announced that an additional 45 years of backfiles will soon be available to Web of Science customers. Beginning first quarter 2005, the Century of Science initiative will increase Web of Science content with backfiles and cited reference data and navigation from 1944 to 1900. This multidisciplinary bibliographic database, accessed via the ISI Web of Knowledge research platform, already offers a collection of backfiles to 1945. With the Century of Science initiative, approximately 850,000 articles from more than 200 journals will be added. (www.gale.com; www.thomson.com; www.thomsonscientific.com)